Mother tells of son's injuries

The Aboriginal man who, five witnesses have said, was brutally
bashed in a Rodney King-style arrest by Victoria Police may need
spinal surgery.

There are also fears that the incident may have triggered his
first attack of epilepsy and damaged his hearing.

At least five people - including an English pop musician and his
band - told The Age they saw up to 10 police drag
27-year-old Raymond William Merritt through a smashed car window
and slam his head onto its roof on February 1 last year.

They said the police then pulled him to the ground and
repeatedly punched and kicked him.

Merritt's mother, Lyn Young, of Leichardt in Sydney, yesterday
said her son believed he lost consciousness more than once during
the arrest and had been told he could no longer hear properly in
one ear.

"He reckons it was the worst flogging he's ever copped in his
life," Miss Young said.

"He has complained about ringing in his ears and he has also
complained about his back and he's now having medical attention for
that up here."

Miss Young said doctors at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital had
told her son he had to have physiotherapy and he might need surgery
to fix a dislocated disc, after he saw a medical officer in the NSW
prison system following his extradition from Victoria last
July.

His brief appearance before the Melbourne Magistrates Court last
February had to be adjourned at the request of his lawyer when he
suffered an epileptic seizure. Miss Young said he had never
suffered epilepsy before.

Unlike several passers-by who witnessed his arrest, Merritt
never made a complaint against police. "He said he was too
frightened of getting another hiding," Miss Young said.

She said he was allowed to leave Victoria only after he pleaded
guilty to one charge of resisting arrest, one of stealing the
$60,000 Holden Calais in which he was arrested and one of
possessing an allegedly stolen Discman, the receipt for which she
said was held by his solicitor.

"He couldn't take any more. He said to me, 'Mum, I'm just gonna
plead guilty to one (charge of) resist arrest and get it over and
done with'. He said: 'I can't handle it down here'."

She said that not even his solicitor could talk him out of
making the guilty pleas.

"He just wanted it finalised," Miss Young said.

She said that far from family and friends, he had become
depressed and that this had been noted by a prison
psychiatrist.

"It's too far for us to come and go. I managed to get down there
the once and I had planned to go back. But he said, 'It's too far
mum'," she said.

As it was, he had come to depend on an Aboriginal worker in the
prison system for telephone contact with his family in Sydney. Had
he opted to contest any or all of the charges, she said, he would
have been held until December.

Merritt was staying with a relative in Heidelberg at the time of
his arrest in Victoria. So, too, was Ray Jackson, a community
visitor in the NSW prisons system, who observed Merritt to be
unwell when he returned with police for a search of the premises.
Miss Young said she was concerned that the police internal
investigations report into the incident had not been publicly
released although her son is believed to have received a copy in
prison in NSW.

The Ombudsman's office has decided not to publicly report on the
case, while the Victorian police have made no comment - except to
say no action is proposed against any officer - until all
complainants have been told the result of an internal
investigation.

Story Picture:
Raymond William Merritt, the alleged victim of a brutal and public bashing by officers of Victoria Police.